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The Economist on Apple, the iPhone, and Innovation
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jun 08, 2007 02:42 PM
from the talking-bout-idea-germination dept.
from the talking-bout-idea-germination dept.
portscan writes "This week's Economist has a special report on Apple, Inc. and innovation. 'The fourth lesson from Apple is to "fail wisely". The Macintosh was born from the wreckage of the Lisa, an earlier product that flopped; the iPhone is a response to the failure of Apple's original music phone, produced in conjunction with Motorola. Both times, Apple learned from its mistakes and tried again. Its recent computers have been based on technology developed at NeXT, a company Mr Jobs set up in the 1980s that appeared to have failed and was then acquired by Apple. The wider lesson is not to stigmatize failure but to tolerate it and learn from it: Europe's inability to create a rival to Silicon Valley owes much to its tougher bankruptcy laws.' There is also an article on the business of the iPhone and the future of the company. "
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Apples the king at failing (Score:5, Funny)
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Witness, for example, KidSafe. QuicktimeTV. iCards. OpenDoc (for you old folks out there). All innovations that, for one reason or another, didn't take off.
TFA talks about network innovation -- and Apple certainly does its fair share of that. But they're also willing to try and are willing to accept a few failures here and there. Because of that risk-
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Re:Apples the king at failing (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference between the two is that with Apple the exchange of money for product represents a transaction that benefits both parties. A happy company and a satisfied customer. With Microsoft all you get is a happy Microsoft and an angry/sad customer.
So Microsoft customers get the raw end of the deal. They pays their money and get nothing in return.
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why do businesses exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Most buisnesses exist and function soley so that they can take as much of your money as possible;
I disagree. Most businesses are started because the founder(s) have a vision of what's possible, as with technology. The WOZ [woz.org] didn't design and build the Apple I [wikipedia.org] to make money, he wanted a computer he could use at home. Much like Bill Hewlett [wikipedia.org] and Dave Packard [wikipedia.org] he did the work in a garage. It's only later, usually after incorporation, that some turn to the idea of making money. But then they have shareholde
Since I've got some karma to burn: (Score:5, Funny)
Just longer than FreeBSD's been dying if I recall correctly
Netcraft confirms it!
(In Soviet Russia Netcraft confirms YOU!)
*ducks*
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Exactly. They can't even fail as a company without screwing it up by making a profit.
The fact that they are continuously failing at failing is proof that the aforementioned pattern doesn't always hold. Obviously, this means that the article is wrong and that the iPhone will be a failure and could result in the company finally managing to fail which would in turn actually validate the a
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I have to disagree with that statement, I would definately think Chrysler would get that honor. How many time have they filed bankruptcy? and they are still in business.
Ah, but there's a big difference between Apple and Chrysler, Apple had recovered on it's own whereas Chrysler had the government bail them out. I'm kind of hoping a private-equity firm or hedge fund buys out Chrysler and turns them around.
FalconAnother pre-emptive iPhone Hype Artcile (Score:2, Insightful)
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I already used that joke on about the Zune!
In both cases = lots of fake astroturfed excitement, no real excitement from users. The media celebrated the Zune until it was obvious that it had bombed.
With the iPhone, there is real excitement from users, but lots of criticism from the media, particularly trolls
Not to stigmatize failure but to tolerate it (Score:5, Funny)
Not mentioned in the article: Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
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The biggest was the extremely limited internal memory. Apple realized early on that nobody is going to buy a $200 piece of hardware that can only hold 12 songs. You can burn a CD for a heck of a lot less. Early flash based players all had that problem, which is why they were a joke product for years.
IMHO, it's kinda ugly too. I can tell they tried, but the front face is just too busy.
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Obligatory link to The Onion (Score:4, Funny)
Fail wisely, OK (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fail wisely, OK (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the Newton was a pretty innovative failure, from which lessons were doubtless learned.
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Same with Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Same with Microsoft, except it usually takes them three tries.
Re:Same with Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Same with Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Close. They have to buy three companies before they get a product worth putting their name on.
Of course, that doesn't stop them from marketing the two other products as well. Sometimes concurrently.
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Bias (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bias (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly that was stolen from Apache.
Look at it this way, when my sister walks into the women's locker room, she's greeted and smiles and can go about her business. When I walk into the women's locker room, it's screams and thrown soap and a visit from the police. Talk about unfair!
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
When did Microsoft get it right?
* Windows 95
* Windows 2000
* Microsoft Office 97
* IE 5.0
The 9x series went down the toilet with the release of 98 and ME, while 2000 has slowly evolved into that pretty but useless abomination known as "Vista", MS Office has added gobs of features that really are NOT great (do I want another MS XML Off
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XP/Vista are part of the Windows 2000 (from NT) line. Or did you miss that part?
None of the above have ever been all that good. Visual Studio always had stiff competition, but managed to play the "OS Maker" card to get in the lead. (Anyone remember when the only C/C++ compiler that supported the "new" Windows 95 was Microsoft's?) Exchange Server has always sucked. It just sucked less tha
Is there anything to suggest.. (Score:2)
As for me personally
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Why is GPS the killer app?
First, GPS is way cool.
Second, I hate telling things where they are when the technology exists for it to know. The "Calamari" iPhone ad was a great example--"Hmm, where's a good seafood restaurant close to where I am."
Third, there are times when I don't know where I am when I'm driving. While I hate people who stare at their GPS while driving, it is handy to at least have a device that says, "You missed the turn."
Fourth, I like the idea of a device that knows where I am and can configure itself appropria
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That's a useful feature, but if it's easy enough to set a few default locations that you frequent not very much less useful.
Third, there are times when I don't know where I am when I'm driving. While I hate people who stare at their GPS while driving, it is handy to at least have a device that says, "You missed the
Like we say in software development... (Score:2, Insightful)
But really, there's wisdom there. You never really know what will be successful until you've gotten something out and developed. If only business people understood that, they could likely leverage it to do exactly what this article recommends -- "fail wisely".
Re:Like we say in software development... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not something Apple are just chucking out into the market place, large amounts of reseach, market analysis and product developement will have been done before the iPhone got green lighted. There is still an element of risk the iPhone will tank but Apple will have done as much as they can to reduce it.
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Tough bankruptcy laws? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the author should look towards Central Europe ca. 1991-2001 to see what economic wonders occur when you have
iPhone *drool* (Score:2)
I'm on the verge of getting one, but it's kinda of expensive so I'm indecisive. But if they do release a SDK, that will be the deciding factor. Phone wise I don't care, but the PDA/computing options for it are just sweet.
Mac wasn't born from the Lisa blunder (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite, they were developed at the same time. The Lisa project began in 1978 and released in 1983. The Macintosh, 1979, released 1984.
Makes sense! (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure why they brought the ROKR into this (Score:5, Informative)
The Motorla ROKR was designed to fail with the arbitrary 100 song capacity limit.
The last thing apple wanted was a successful ROKR that might have cannibalized sales from the iPOD and the Apple branded music phone that everybody knew would come out eventually.
If the ROKR were an Apple product, you could make a case that Apple "failed", in this case Apple succeeded, they held off the market until they could debut their own device that makes them money.
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Motorola Phone Failure Was Intentional (Score:4, Insightful)
Comparing the Motorola phones to the Lisa probably has every Lisa in the world rolling over in their mass-grave.
Buy Palm? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did anybody notice ex-Apple VP of iPod Jon Rubenstein is now Chief XYZ at Palm? Does the investment firm that took the Palm stake have any other Apple ties?
I mean, if Apple acquired Palm, and Palm already has deals in place with Verizon, Sprint, NexTel, et. al., well, Apple couldn't very well not honor those commitments. And Palm just happens to be re-tooling their XScale phone to run on a small Unix OS (Linux). So, it wouldn't very well make sense to develop two completely different yet entirely similar products, would it?
But, hey, I've been known to claim the 3GHz promise was just a strawman to excuse sacking IBM. Steve learned from his NeXTMachine failure that a software company is better off using cheap commodity hardware.
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Right now Verizon is the carrier to have for high speed wireless data with EVDO, but the thing about AT&T is that they're building out HSDPA which is several times faster than EVDO and the planned upgrade path for the majority of cell networks globally.
Re:Bleh (Score:5, Funny)
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Over hyped? No, genuine excitement. (Score:5, Insightful)
- January 10, 2007: MacWorld 2007 keynote, introduces iPhone
- Apple.com iPhone web site
- A couple interviews showing the phone, letting reporters hold it for a couple minutes
- A very few magazine articles with access to Steve Jobs and the iPhone
- Super Bowl "Hello" iPhone commercial
- June 3, 2007: Apple starts running four new commercials that demonstrate features of the phone
Really, this is far, far less promotion than you see for typical new products. Heck, hamburgers at Burger King get more hype than this, by far, in a six month period. Even though they probably eat a whole bunch of them, bloggers don't get excited and blog about it.Apple's biggest contribution to the "hype" came from keeping the project secret until it was up to a point where it could be demonstrated, and then keeping their mouths shut after the MacWorld Keynote, and refusing to answer questions about anything that wasn't demonstrated by Steve Jobs on January 10.
What we're seeing in the media, blogs, and in meatspace is, I think, genuine excitement. People can look at the information that's available, which is I grant you incomplete, but they can also look at the phone in their hand. They can tell immediately that several things they don't like about their phone are fixed by the iPhone. Visual Voicemail is damned exciting. A phone that can access the internet simply and easily is exciting. The Google Maps commercial makes girls squeel and giggle with delight when they see the pins drop... (try it sometime.) I don't think it's hype. I think it's genuine interest.
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And then have none? (Score:3, Interesting)
And then have zero [slashdot.org] to sell at launch?
They need to be able to get them here to sell them.
Re:elite (Score:4, Funny)
Not all status symbols are actually good. Most decent restaurants are actually better than fast food, but what exactly does a Rolex do that a regular watch doesn't?
A good segment of the population are, to put it bluntly, fucking morons who will believe anything they see on TV. That does not exactly bolster your case.
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Re:elite (Score:5, Insightful)
I wear a $29 timex ironman. It keeps almost perfect time (loses 4 seconds a year), it has a countdown timer and 2 alarms and runs about 5 years on a battery. Nobody is going to hold me up for my watch either.
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You know what? I never want people like that to talk to me. I will stick with jeans and t-shirts, because that gets me into conversations with people who have something to say, which is much more interesting to me than "a LOT of money".
Re:Appeared to have failed? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, there's Interface Builder. They got that from NeXT. But apart from Interface Builder and BSD, there are no NeXT technologies whatsoever in current Apple computers. Except of course for Cocoa, which is heavily based on NextStep/OpenStep, hence the fact that it has all those classes with names prefixed by "NS". But with the exception of BSD, Interface Builder, and Cocoa, there are no NeXT technologies in Apple computers at all. Unless of course you count Objective-C as a "technology", which NeXt licensed for programming in NeXTStep and OpenStep while Macs were being programmed in Pascal and C++. But I agree that apart from BSD, Interface Builder, Cocoa, and Objective-C, Apple computers are completely devoid of NeXT technologies. OK, I'll admit that Portable Distributed Objects also came from NeXT. I'll give way on that one. But if you discount BSD, Interface Builder, Cocoa, Objective-C, and PDO, current Apple computers are totally and completely free from NeXT technologies. Utterly without _anything_ from NeXT. Honestly. I mean, WebObjects, which is admittedly a NeXT technology, isn't even installed on most Macs, so _the majority_ of Macs are free from it. Well, they are. Really. So I can, without any pangs of conscience, categorically state that, with the exception of...
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